More than 4,000 people will converge on Denver this weekend. They are attending the 27th annual conference of the Christian Home Educators of Colorado.

“We provide resources, vision, workshops, talks; we have keynote speakers,” Mike Chapa, executive director of CHEC, said. “The home school movement is growing across this land and there’s estimates that it’s close to 2-and-a-half million now [nationwide].”

Chapa says there are more and more home schooling families in Colorado each year. He believes a big factor is religion. He says another factor is statistics. Chapa says on average, home-schooled students score in the 85th percentile on standardized tests, beating students from traditional public schools.

“Twenty-four-seven is how we view education of children,” Chapa said. “We don’t view it as they’re in class for X hours a day and then everything else is not education.”

Thirteen-year-old Nathan Johnson may be a good example of that. He is attending the conference as a vendor helping sell woodwork created by him and a friend. They designed and made their own marshmallow shooters and rubber band guns. Johnson says being home-schooled gives him freedom to be creative.